


Never Too Late

by xanster



Series: Deja Vu No Matter The World [17]
Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, M/M, Physics, Romance, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 17:33:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6966562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xanster/pseuds/xanster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An old letter with an unfulfilled promise falls into the hands of Shim Changmin, a young man who buys an antique table.<br/>Feeling sorry, he decides to seek out the owner of the table to return the letter to him.<br/>What he didn't expect, was to embark on his own journey of fulfillment and discovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration for this has refused to leave me for almost two years. My first foray into fantasy writing. All comments welcomed~
> 
> I included reference pictures @ xanster.livejournal.com for the notebook and the antique table.
> 
> This is also the end of my Deja Vu No Matter The World series, and the reason for the title will be explained at the end of this story.

The letter sits there, unopened.  
Probably unopened for ages.  
A layer of dust over it.  
Tucked in between a red notebook.

R=V+d it says on the cover. A few squiggles.  
Perhaps it belonged to a kid?

Changmin slides the drawer out and empties it onto the table.  
The book lies face down, the letter has fallen out.

Changmin briefly wonders if it would be rude to open it.

But he had already paid for the table,  
A little redwood gem from the antique shop down the road.  
And so technically, everything in it was his.

He turns the letter over.  
Nothing is written on the envelope, except the grey of dirt and yellow of age.

Except for the first few pages talking about work; schedules of its previous owner;  
Grocery list, there is nothing remarkable.

Except on the last written page.

_Remember to give him the letter._

Changmin's eyes flick back and forth from the letter to the notebook and back again.  
Was that the letter?

He feels a tinge of sympathy for the owner.  
Obviously the letter never made it to _Him_ , whoever it was.

Curiosity piqued.  
He sits himself down on the edge of the bed,  
and slides the envelope open.

\---

**By the time you read this, I would probably have long gone.  
** Don't be angry yet, we'll have the rest of our lives for you to yell at me for it.  
Just take your time and do what you have to do.  
When you're ready,  
I'll be waiting.  
At the same place. 

**I know you'll be able to find me.**

**I'll be waiting.**

\---

Oh no, Changmin thinks.  
But you didn't give him the letter.


	2. Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old letter with an unfulfilled promise falls into the hands of Shim Changmin, a young man who buys an antique table.  
> Feeling sorry, he decides to seek out the owner of the table to return the letter to him.  
> What he didn't expect, was to embark on his own journey of fulfillment and discovery.

Huh, he thinks. Maybe Mr Cho would have an idea of who the table used to belong to. He sheaths the receipt back into his wallet and looks back down at the book. Maybe he should take it along and see if Mr Cho recognised it.

\---

The door bell chimes, signalling his entry.

A middle-aged man in overalls at the far end of the shop stands up from his crouched-over position, looking up at the newcomer.

"Mr Cho. I'm the person who bought that little redwood dresser from you awhile ago," starts Changmin with a little smile, walking over towards the other.

"Ah, yes. What can I do for you, young lad?" replies Mr Cho, brushing his hands against his overalls. Changmin is holding the book in his left hand and passes it to the shop owner.

"This was in the drawer of the dresser. Maybe the previous owner had left it behind..?" asks Changmin.

Mr Cho does not respond. His eyes have gone wide and he is staring at the book. _Oh,_ Changmin thinks _, he definitely recognises it._

"Mr Cho..? Do you know who it belongs to..?"

The owner startles and his eyes turn back to Changmin, as if just remembering he was still there. He plasters a half-smile on his face, "Yes, lad. I do, indeed."

\---

"I never knew.. it was there all along. It was there. If only.. if only Yunho.." Mr Cho's voice trails off as he shakes his head slowly, like he was in disbelief.

Changmin is lost; it seems the book was something really important and its owner had been a man called Yunho. Curiosity tickles at his tongue and he opens his mouth to ask again.

"Yunho? Was this Yunho the owner..?"

\---

_The two men lay on the grass, arms draped lazily around the other. The sun was high in the sky but the cover of the tree shaded them from its full glare. The one on the right was slightly taller and his eyes turned up in a mismatched way when he smiled. And he smiled often, mostly when the man next to him was near. His short, slightly wavy hair showed off his boyishly-handsome features off to their best. Sometimes, just sometimes, the older of the two swore, he felt like he could stare at the man forever._

_They lay there, staring into each other's eyes, a soft breeze tickling their skin. Then the older of the two leaned in and brushed a kiss onto the tip of the younger's nose._

_"You're such a sap, Yunho."_  
_"You secretly love it though, Min-ah."_  
_"I don't."_  
_"You **so** do." laughs Yunho as he reaches over to tickle the younger, squealing in protest. He lands on top of the man, and time stops._  
_"Hey." whispers Yunho._  
_"Hey." replies Min._  
_"How did I become so lucky?"_  
_The tips of Min's ears colour slightly at the proclamation. He nudges at the older man, all the while holding him close._  
_"No, baby. I'm the lucky one." he murmurs, as he reaches up to press a kiss against the other's bow-shaped lips._

**"Yun..? Baby? Where are you?" whispered Min urgently, tears threatening to fall out of his doe eyes. He looked around frantically at the empty study, hoping against hope that Yunho would appear, maybe crawl out from under his desk or one of the secret conclaves hidden behind his bookshelves. Yunho was an inventor and recently, he had stumbled upon a formula.**

\---  
_With eyes alight with excitement, he had run up to the workshop where Min had been, working on one of his woodwork projects, and enveloped the other in a bear hug._

_"Baby, baby, baby! I think I may have made a groundbreaking discovery. I will be lauded in journals everywhere, be called to Germany, to Switzerland, maybe even win a Novel Peace Prize! Do you realise what this means?"_

_Yunho had babbled on excitedly about managing to find something that he had called a 'backdoor'; something that allowed him to manipulate 'time and space'. Min didn't really understand most of it; he had just put it down to scientific jargon and kissed Yunho back, happy for him. They had celebrated that night with a bottle of vintage and then Yunho had taken him to bed. Savoured him. Held him. Once again, whispering words of love and thanks._

_"Thank you so much. I love you, I love you. You give me so much strength, baby. I love you."_

_Min had not known at the time, he just kissed Yunho back and moaned as the other thrust himself into him repeatedly, climaxing together._  
\---

But Yunho was nowhere to be found. He had said, he said he would be back. He needed to test something, he had said. He needed to go but he would be back and he would be back soon. And then he would show it to Min and the both of them could try it out. And it would be perfectly safe.

**I got to try it out, and make sure it's safe for you to come along. Just hang on, baby.**

Min felt the tears come out as panic swelled up in his throat. That was almost 12 hours ago. Yunho said he would be back in an hour. And he was definitely not in this room although he had not left the house, of that Min was pretty sure.

With shaking hands, he reached for the phone and dialled a number.

_"Kyu? Kyu... Yunho's gone."_

\---

Mr Cho finishes his recollection, fingers massaging at his temples. He is almost misty-eyed as well, as though recalling something traumatic. Changmin is quiet by his side, trying to absorb what he had just been told.

So Yunho and Min had been lovers; and then one day, Yunho had gone missing. It seemed like the journal then, was meant for Min. But how did Yunho manage to leave it in the drawer of the dresser? How did it go undetected for so long?

Mr Cho shakes his head.

"Min and I were best friends. But Yunho's disappearance took its toll on him. He was sure, so sure Yunho would return and refused to move on. Then one day, about a few years after Yunho had disappeared, he told me Yunho had returned and then disappeared again. It happened a few times. I was sure he had finally lost it. Then, one day," Mr Cho shudders and closes his eyes. "One day, I saw Yunho."

\---

_Kyuhyun cursed under his breath as he walked up the pathway leading to the house. Min needed to do some lawn maintenance and soon, but he had been busy with some carpentry. For that, Kyuhyun was glad. After Yunho had gone, Min had lost interest in many things for a long time. But recently, he had returned to work. He had even stopped bringing up seeing Yunho, which probably meant he was starting to heal in the head as well._

_Hearing voices, Kyuhyun looked up the pathway and -gasped- as he spotted a slightly shorter man holding Min in his arms from the back. Although he could only see the side of the couple, he recognised Yunho immediately. Those broad shoulders, the long, black hair, the white shirt that clung to his biceps. He was holding onto Min tightly and Min had his eyes closed, leaning back._

_"I love you so much, baby. I'm so sorry I keep doing this to you." said Yunho as he nuzzled into the side of Min's neck._  
_"When will you stop leaving me?"_  
_"I don't know. I'm trying, I'm trying so hard to stay. Every time I come back, I try. You have to believe me."_  
_"It's not fair, Yun. I can't. How do I wait for someone who can't be with me?"_  
_"All I know is the reason I can return every time, is because I know you are there waiting."_

Kyuhyun had sunk to his knees in shock, watching the scene unfold although he knew he was intruding. Min had been telling the truth! He quietly got up and left, wanting to give the two privacy. From then on, he had become more protective of Min, waiting for his best friend to tell him everything.

Then one day, he had.

Over wine outside in the lawn, Min had been sitting, staring up at the sky which was lit up with twinkling stars. It was silence, a comfortable one that came with years of familiarity.

"Kyu," began Min. He took a sip of wine to fortify himself. "I have something to tell you."

Kyuhyun had looked at him over the top of his glass. He had a feeling...

"Yunho. Remember when I told you Yunho had been working on a formula and discovered something? Well, he discovered the backdoor to manipulate time and space." Changmin took another gulp of his wine and sat up, turning to face Kyuhyun fully.

"Yunho accidentally uncovered the backdoor to time travel." he stated, a sad smile turning up at the corner of his lips.


	3. Dimensions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old letter with an unfulfilled promise falls into the hands of Shim Changmin, a young man who buys an antique table.  
> Feeling sorry, he decides to seek out the owner of the table to return the letter to him.  
> What he didn't expect, was to embark on his own journey of fulfillment and discovery.

Mr Cho paused for a long while after that. Changmin let the words sink in, let them etch into his brain. 

_Time travel._

For some reason, the idea of it was vaguely familiar, like a flickering at the edge of his memory. 

 

Mr Cho seemed to disappear again for a moment before he gathered himself, remembering his audience. 

 

"Yunho, he was trying to unravel the mysteries of this backdoor that he found. He had been working on some formulas and doing some tests with some machinery he built. I wasn't too sure what it was exactly, but Yunho was an inventor, that one. It was what mesmerised Min so much. He loved to watch Yunho at work and listen to Yunho prattle on about some new gadget or other. I used to tease him, our Min, the infamous Min with no heart, all turned to putty when he was with Yunho. We adored Yunho. He made Min smile, and to me, that was enough." 

 

"What happened,Mr Cho? Did Yunho manage to find a way to return to Min?" asked Changmin softly. Somehow, he already could guess at the answer. It sat like a lump of lead in the middle of his chest, as he waited for a clearly emotional Mr Cho to answer him. 

 

Mr Cho shook his head sadly. 

"He tried. But it was killing him, or killing Min. I don't know. It was taking its toll, the long disappearances, the infrequent appearances. Wherever Yunho had gone to when he slipped back through that backdoor, it was probably twice as long here where Min was. Yunho would come back, looking like he hadn't been gone for more than an hour, but it was a few months later here in our time. It broke both their hearts when they realised they were leaving each other behind."

 

 _Parallels,_ thought Changmin.  _Like lines that could never meet. Somehow, it seemed like deja vu._

"Yunho, as always. He could tell. Even though he was gone for months, almost years at a time, he knew he was hurting Min. So he did what anyone would do, when they realise their presence was causing pain to someone they love."

 _He stopped trying to return._ Changmin could feel the stone in his chest drop, a strange ache starting up in its place. 

 

Mr Cho sighed again. 

"Min, he took it badly. I don't think.. I recalled him smiling again. He started trying to find a way to Yunho even though I tried to stop him. I warned him, he was playing a dangerous game. What if he ended up somewhere where he could never return - or find Yunho. What if he died? What if Yunho returned and he wasn't there? But no, he wouldn't listen. He said he was smart enough and if Yunho could do it, he could too. So he spent days and days in Yunho's study, reading his notes. Attempting weird experiments. At first I stayed with him, hoping to convince him to just let it go. But then I got scared. I didn't know what was going to happen. Then one day, one day, Min came, all dressed up like he was going backpacking. And I knew - he was leaving. He said he had given me the deeds to their house and everything, that I would take care of their stuff in the meantime..." at this, Mr Cho's voice trailed off, as he tried to fight his emotions. 

_Min left to find Yunho._

 

And then?

 

"And then, I became the one that lost two dear friends."

\---

From what Mr Cho had shared with him, Changmin realised that Min had succeeded, he had managed to find the way to the backdoor. In desperation, Mr Cho had tried to call for experts; he contacted scientists, even the police. But after several near-threats to be committed to psychiatric institutions he stopped. He finally resigned himself to having lost two friends and had tried to move on. Until he sold Changmin Yunho's dresser.

The rational side of Changmin found this hard to believe. He felt it was a sentimental story that had been dreamed up by a lonely man in order to get Changmin to buy more antiques from him. There's no such thing as time travel, Changmin. But somehow, deep inside, his _heart_ begged to differ. 

\---

Sitting at his desk later that day, Changmin thought again about what Mr Cho had said and opened the red diary. He recalled the stories he read as a child, growing up. Of men in time travel machines traversing different dimensions and circumventing space and time. Those men operated on the assumption that if the world was layered in different dimensions, side by side, all you needed was a bridge that could help you go across. In physics lectures, according to superstring theory, there was at least 10 dimensions in the universe. M-theory suggested there was 11, and bosonic string theories even pushed for 26.

 

Considering people are aware of the first basic 3 dimensions; length, width, depth , these define what we perceive as reality, as the objects in the universe. However, if we consider the possibility of the universe existing in up to 10 different dimensions, these connotated what would govern the universe, and all the elementary particles contained within. Besides the three dimensions, there was the 4th. This was what he was most interested in, and probably what Yunho and Min had latched upon as the basis for their study. 

  
Grabbing his old physics encyclopedia, Changmin looked for the superstring theory section and started to read.

[..the **fourth dimension** is time, which governs the properties of all known matter at any given point. Along with the three other dimensions, knowing an object's position in time is essential to plotting its position in the universe.the fifth and sixth dimensions are where the notion of possible worlds arises. If we could see on through to the **fifth dimension** , we would see a world slightly different from our own that would give us a means of measuring the similarity and differences between our world and other possible ones...]

Therefore, by simple reverse-working, if a way could be found to the 5th dimension, one would be able to go onto the 6th, which would be where all possible worlds that could have begun in the same way as the one we live in now, it meant that one would be able to travel forward and back in time or go to different futures. Clearly, Yunho had mastered the 5th and the 6th, as he had managed to travel back and forth in time. The problem was that he kept missing Min, which meant that he took a long time to return. 

But perhaps, it was  _not_ his fault that he was taking a long time. Time in the 6th dimension was probably different from time as we know in in the 3 basic dimensions. If one kept travelling back and forth, jumping across space, it probably meant that time itself was pulled and stretched across space. So when Yunho managed to traverse that barrier, he had in fact been stretching time - except time was not being stretched in the world Min was. 

It was pretty simple logic, if one understood it step-by-step. 

 

It meant that Yunho and Min were in different dimensions - the issue being, while Yunho, being the experienced mind at this, was able to pinpoint Min's location (while he was still in our dimension) and get back to him from time to time; Min was not. So while Yunho had comparatively more control over his travelling, Min did not. Even if he had found the backdoor, it did not mean he knew where he was going. And therein, lay the problem.

 

Yunho and MIn were in different dimensions with possibly no way of finding each other. Perhaps when Min was still in our world, Yunho would be able to have a place to get back to. But without Min there, Yunho would not be able to return. Or rather, he would not have wanted to. The thing was, would have Yunho known that Min had come after him? 

 

Changmin looked again at the letter.

 

**I know you'll be able to find me.**

 

Somehow, Changmin felt the answer was there, in front of his eyes. 

 

But he could not yet wrap his head around the different elements and put them together yet. 

 

**I'll be waiting.**

 

 


	4. R=v+D

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old letter with an unfulfilled promise falls into the hands of Shim Changmin, a young man who buys an antique table.  
> Feeling sorry, he decides to seek out the owner of the table to return the letter to him.  
> What he didn't expect, was to embark on his own journey of fulfillment and discovery.

It was all too easy, in the end. To just go to Mr Cho and ask if he could visit  _their_ house. At first Mr Cho was hesitant; reluctant even, almost suspicious of Changmin's motives. But once he heard him explain about the 4th, 5th and 6th dimensions and Changmin's theories, he relented. 

"I don't know you lad, but I hope I won't regret this." said Mr Cho as he sighed and stared at the grandfather clock that hung at the side of his antiques shop. 

"I just want to have a look at Yunho's study. For one, I have a physics background. Just maybe, I can understand what's going on and help you gain closure."

Mr Cho appeared like he was fighting an internal battle as he continued staring at the grandfather clock. It's minute hands ticked away, seemingly taunting him. He thought of Min, of Yunho and of his life the past few years.

Just thinking of them as dead would have made it more bearable- except he knew they weren't. Lost somewhere in time and in a space that was not inhabited by men as far as he knew. He missed Min, their wine sessions and his constant teasing. He missed rolling his eyes when Yunho came over to pick Min up and how they would stare at each other when they first caught sight of the other; like they were genuinely surprised. Then he found out what it was - it was not surprise, it was a mutual constant realisation of love. The feeling of living, just  _knowing_ that one was loved dearly and just missing that person until he or she was back and then, feeling complete.

Kyuhyun missed many things. He missed watching Min and Yunho and feeling both bittersweet and happy. He had a similar type of love before but the disappearance of Min had taken its toll on him. Now, he lived, like a man who was waiting. Never knew he was waiting - until one day, Changmin walked into his shop and bought Yunho's dresser. 

I guess this is fate..? He thought drily. 

He looked up at Changmin and nodded. "I'll take you this weekend." 

\---

The house was on top of a short, curved driveway with a small garden and vines twirled around its walls. It had stood quietly through the passage of time and the emotional turmoil that waged itself in the past, while flowing onto the present.

Changmin looked up at the house and felt a deep pang in his heart. It was unfathomable and inexplicable. But yet, there it was. A house that had seen so much love and at the same time, so much sadness. He wondered if he was intruding yet he had never felt so welcome. Was that the right word? He wondered internally. It was peculiar, the depth of his need to unravel the secrets of the red journal that lay in his slingbag. 

 

"Did you know, if ever Yunho returned?" 

 

Mr Cho was silent for a few seconds before he answered, "As far as I know, once he made up his mind not to return, he managed to come back just one more time to say goodbye to Min. But now thay you've found his journal, it seems, he may have come back without me knowing."

 

"What about Min?"

 

At the query, Mr Cho seemed to become more despondent. 

 

"He never did, but then again, after he left, I couldn't bring myself to come here too often. I came often at the start, but it got too painful. Now I just come once in awhile to check that the garden doesn't get overgrown and everything's ok."

\---

Back home, Changmin sat and looked at the notes he made. He had written down a chronological table where he had tried to piece together what he knew and what he had found out from Mr Cho. However, there were still many missing pieces. 

In school, his professors had espoused non-stop about the merits of equating events into statistical patterns for analysis. Differentiation helped to allocate values to various variables in order to study the impact of each on a certain outcome. As a physics researcher, it was natural that this would call for Changmin's analytical mind.

While it was difficult for him to allocate the values, at least he could try to theorise what the variables were. Most backdoors are just variants of current equations that were either flipped or diverged to create alternate outcomes. Considering how he had already pinpointed what was known as the "Dream dimension" i.e the 6th dimension, all he needed was the outcome and multipler. The problem was how does one figure out the missing link?

 

Changmin sighed and turned to dig out Yunho's journal. The man's writing was near and he used a lot of smileys and doodled. There were many ''Min♥️s" dotted across the margins as well. He closed the book and looked at the cover. Then his eyes caught sight of something and it was like a bulb had gone off in his head.

R=v+D

The equation that Changmin needed was right there in front of his eyes!

 

R=v+D! 

 

He grabbed his pencil and started trying to work out the values. 

R(outcome) = v(multipler)+D(ream dimensioN

 

Yunho, I'm coming.

"


	5. Tangent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old letter with an unfulfilled promise falls into the hands of Shim Changmin, a young man who buys an antique table.  
> Feeling sorry, he decides to seek out the owner of the table to return the letter to him.  
> What he didn't expect, was to embark on his own journey of fulfillment and discovery.

Well so he had a formula. However, he had nothing else to work on. He wondered if Mr Cho would object greatly if he went to the house himself. 

 _It'd be okay, he knows you want to help find out what happened,_ said the devil on his shoulder.

 _But you'd be betraying his trust,_ argued the angel on the opposite side.

 

 _He doesn't have to know,_ said his brain. And curiosity won out.

 

\---

As Changmin stood at the bottom of the driveway, he felt that strange sense of  _welcomeness_ again. He was pretty sure he had never been in the neighbourhood before but he felt like he knew the place. There was a little bit of stone sticking out from the driveway, where if one was not watching, one could trip over. Somehow subconsciously, Changmin looked down at it, and stepped over. Again, that weird, peculiar feeling. It seemed like it was just waiting on the other side of a door, waiting for him to open. 

The house was locked up as Changmin had expected but other than feeling slightly disappointed, something told him to go around to the back. There, he found a little shed. It probably served as a gardener's shed a long time ago but now it just stood, windows darkened. It seemed set apart from the house, wooden in structure where the house was built in bricks. There was a little path trodden by footsteps walking back and forth from it to the back door umpteen times. Something told Changmin to try the door. It should be locked, just as the house was. 

 

He put his hand on the handle, and turned.

\---

_"Jung Yunho! I'm not calling you a third time!" yelled Min over his shoulder. He moved towards the stove to grab the pot of soup when he heard footsteps running in and then a pair of muscular arms embraced him from the back. Min huffed although that was just reflex._

_"Sorry baby. I had to close the experiment before I could leave. You know experiments can't.."_

_"..can't be left hanging or else potential outcomes can be changed." finished Min, "Yes I know, you have only told me a million times." He rolled his eyes as his boyfriend laughed and nuzzled him gently._

_Min could see Yunho's workshed from where he stood. It remained lit for Yunho would return to it for about a couple of hours after dinner. When he was working on a project, he was like a drug addict - nothing could tear him away; well, except maybe Min, food and sex with Min but that was besides the point. Min was at times fearful of the shed. He admired his lover's work ethic but he worried over the type of work he did. While still scientific, it bordered on the realm of the eccentric. Or rather, unexplainable. He remembered Yunho explaining to him before about his line of work as an experimental physicist that specialised in physical cosmology when they had first met - a mathematics teacher and a scientist - who knew they'd end up together? While he did not question the validity of Yunho's work, it broke his heart a little with how much it consumed Yunho._

_"Are you drifting off on me again, my little dreamer?" whispered Yunho._

_Changmin exhaled and turned away from the sight of the shed. He pulled Yunho's arms tighter around himself and held the other close, tucking his face into the crook of his neck._

_"I just missed you."_

_He felt the other press a kiss to the side of his head, swaying him gently on the spot._

_"I missed you too."_

_That night after Yunho took him to bed; with practised movements that peeled the clothes off his body and bared him, his soul and his everything, for the man above him; as their mouths met, tongues clashed and limbs wrestled and entwined; as he pushed up and Yunho thrust inwards; as they both groaned and clutched at each other to completion; Min lay with a light layer of sweat in Yunho's arms. He looked out at the moon hanging deep against the velveteen sky and the array of stars that sparkled softly around it. Behind him, Yunho's soft breaths tickled at the nape of his neck. Though comforting, it also brought home just how much he loved the other._

_It was with a tinge of sadness that he then realised what it was that he was really worried about._

 

_He worried that one day, he'd lose the love of his life to that shed and all the secrets it held inside._

_\---_

The door opened easily and swung open. Changmin was surprised, yet not really. Somehow, in the same peculiar way as before, he knew the door would not be locked. Maybe Mr Cho had forgotten to, during one of his checks, or maybe.. well. Changmin pushed that thought out of his head. Who knew how long it had been before either of them had returned or if they even had managed to. 

The inside of the shed was dark and quiet. Of course, no one was inside. Changmin harrumphed at the thought. There were things and furniture inside, which meant that Mr Cho had left everything untouched but covered them instead with tarps. He could see the outlines of a workstation in the middle, another desk, a whiteboard, a sofa, a couple of stools and a larger dark object that took up almost the entire back part of the shed. 

He glanced to the side and something caught his eye. It was a photo frame with a photograph of a man inside. He walked nearer to have a closer look. 

The man inside the photograph, was smiling happily at the camera, with his eyes lit up and teeth showing. Even though it was old, you could tell he was happy, contentment showed in his expression. He was looking straight at the camera, like it was someone precious on the other side. It was  _as though he was looking and smiling right at Changmin_.

Changmin stumbled as he almost dropped the photo frame. Somehow, the strange feeling had returned. It was not fear or wariness, it was a  _familiar_ feeling. Still, Changmin could not put his finger on it. 

He replaced the photo frame on the ledge and looked back at the shed. It was lit up partially through the light from the windows and the open door. In his mind's eye, he could imagine Yunho pottering around inside the shed, working on his experiments and writing down notes.

 _Notes_.

He remembered what he was there for. He moved towards the desk first and gently pulled aside the tarp that lay over it. There were a few papers and notebooks on it. He opened one of them up. The first half of the book was in Yunho's neat handwriting, the same one as was in his red journal. But the later section of the book was in someone else's writing. A more curved type, with quick criss-crosses and smudges. It was as though the second author had been frustrated, angrily jotting down additions and then cancelling them out. 

Something else caught his eye.

Along the margins of one of the back pages, the second author had written:

Changmin recognised it as the Schrodinger Equation, where  _i_ was the imaginary unit,   was the time-dependent wavefunction,  was the h-bar,  _V_ ( _x_ ) was the potential and  was the Hamiltonian operator. The Schrodinger equation is used in physics to find the allowed energy levels of quantum mechanical systems (such as atoms, or transistors). The associated **wavefunction** gives the probability of finding the particle at a certain position.

However instead of where the  unit which would have indicated the wavefunction, or the variable needed to find the targeted particle, it was written: Yunho. It was underlined twice and followed by multiple !!

 

So it meant that the Schrodinger Equation was the key! He needed to look through Yunho's notes again and figure out a way to implement his formula into this. He would have to go and find Mr Cho.

 

Changmin turned around and almost jumped out of his skin.

 

Mr Cho was standing at the door, a furious look on his face.

"Would you like to tell me what you're doing, trespassing on someone else's property?!"

 


	6. The Key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old letter with an unfulfilled promise falls into the hands of Shim Changmin, a young man who buys an antique table.  
> Feeling sorry, he decides to seek out the owner of the table to return the letter to him.  
> What he didn't expect, was to embark on his own journey of fulfillment and discovery.

All his life, Changmin had been searching for a calling.

He had heard stories of men who spent their nights staring up at the skies, and counting the stars.

He had wondered what was so amazing up there, to steal men's gazes from the life that went on under the velvet skies. In school, he learnt about the patterns of numbers.

1+1 =2 and on that logic, of how even numbers were divisible and odd would always have something left over, he devoured knowledge about the world.

The order upon which it spun; as names dropped from the mouths of wizened wise people, printed on journal articles and academic textbooks.

Gravity, Newton's Law, Theory of Relativity, and then he learnt finally when his teacher, Ms Jin, drew a picture of a man on the moon.

He learnt the world "space traveller", or astronaut. He savoured the word on his tongue.

The cosmos. Space. Stars. The galaxy. Constellations.

He finally put a name to those men from centuries ago who preferred the diamonds above them, to the fleetingness of the lives they lived.

Astronomers. Star-gazers.

And he wondered, in a smallness as tiny as he was, surely there was something bigger than this.

He had found his calling - through physics - he could discover the universe.

\---

He finished his explanation, hoping against hope that Mr Cho would give him a chance. He had betrayed the man's trust but deep inside, he  _knew_ he was doing the right thing. 

"Are you?" asked Mr Cho, a voice quiet against the soft buzz of the neighbourhood around them.

They were seated on the two stools in the shed. Changmin had started with the red journal, the notes that he had made all those nights ago, the theories he had compared the formulae with. And then, he had showed Mr Cho, Yunho and Min's notes. He skipped the numbers though, not knowing how far along in his mathematical knowledge, Mr Cho was. Rather than confuse him and get him scared again or something, he wanted the man on his side. He was after all, Min's best friend, and had known the couple. That connection alone, made him want to keep the man on his side.

Changmin was not sure how to answer. Was his gut feeling enough to go on?

"Yes." he replied, anyway. 

Mr Cho gazed at him.

"I guess there's a reason for everything. A reason why you bought Yunho's dresser, found his book, and for some weird reason, are able to understand it."

He glanced around at the shed, the mid-afternoon sunlight shining through, giving the shed a newly-found glow that had not been there before. 

When he looked back at Changmin, his eyes sparkled.

Changmin recognised it immediately. It was the renewed glimmer of _hope_. 

\---

In order for a key to open a door, it has to be found.

For the key to be found, a map to it has to be located.

For the map to be located, the instructions have to followed.

In order to follow the instructions...

 

"I have to solve the equation." answered Changmin. 

Mr Cho was standing at the workstation, leafing through some documents. He had brought another box of stuff out from the house before locking it up and coming back to the shed. He thought perhaps the things inside could be of help to Changmin. However, Changmin was too engrossed in trying to align the two equations he had together, to look inside yet. 

"Yes." responded Mr Cho. 

\--

 

R=v+D

\--

Changmin tried to make sense of the two. Where could he substitute Yunho's key in without messing up the outcome? 

He sighed in frustration as he tried to peer at the notes left on the desk. Something was missing.

 

Mr Cho stepped up beside him and took a look over his shoulder. 

"Is that the Schrodinger Equation?" he asked.

"You recognise it? You know physics?" 

"Not really, but if it is, you're on the right track. Min found that too..." his voice trailed off, as his memory skipped back a few years to an excited Min scribbling frantically on sheets and sheets of paper while Kyuhyun watched anxiously from the kitchen window, wondering if he would lose his best friend to that shed. Just like how Min had lost Yunho to it. 

"It is, but I need something else to fit into it..." 

"Like another something that leads to it?" asked Mr Cho.

Changmin thought hard about that- it did make sense. Theorising conditions for experiments meant elimination by trial; and to start off, it meant that a series of conditions had to be set. If the Schrodinger Equation was the product, he would need its factorial. 

"YES!" he shouted, catching Mr Cho off-guard. 

 

Usually, Newton's second law ( **F** = _m_ **a** ) is applied in order to predict the logical sequence as to what a given pathway would be, following a set of known initial conditions. In quantum mechanics, this meant Schrodinger's Equation. However, in simple algebra, it just meant a linear partial differential equation! Since Changmin had the initial conditions, all he had to do was to quantify the linear partial differential equation and hopefully, get the values that he could use for the rest of Schrodinger's. Once he did it, he should be left with just ...

"One value which would be where you would add Yunho's equation!" Mr Cho murmured. He turned to Changmin, eyes shining. 

"I don't dare to.. I can't bear to hope. But maybe..?" he whispered, awestruck.

Changmin placed his hand on Mr Cho's shoulder and squeezed.

"I hope so."

\---

He worked silently through the night, with Mr Cho bringing him food and drink. They could not bring themselves to leave the shed, with Mr Cho now counting himself in for every step of the way.  _And when I see Min, I will kill him - okay maybe not kill him because that would waste all our effort, but I would punch him really hard a few times.._ _and I would hug Yunho hyung hard. Like really hard, and then also maybe punch him for doing this to all of us -_ In the early hours of the morning, Changmin dozed on the sofa. He left to go home and pack an overnight bag before returning as agreed on the third day, while Mr Cho went to run some errands, and close his shop for a few days. They were both determined to try and see if this could possibly work.

\---

 

Then on the fourth day, Changmin decided he had a working theoretical Schrodinger's Equation. He recalled his thesis supervisor rambling on animatedly about Galileo's Law of Falling Bodies. He had derived the relationship between distance travelled and time while noting how balls rolled down an inclined plane.

1\.  [](http://blogs.bu.edu/ggarber/files/2012/09/velocity.png) or  Δx = vavgΔt

2.  [](http://blogs.bu.edu/ggarber/files/2012/09/acceleration.png) or  vf = vo \+ aΔt            

3.[](http://blogs.bu.edu/ggarber/files/2012/09/average-velocity.png)

4.   Δx = vo Δt + ½ a Δt2

5.      vf2=vo2 +2aΔx

 

These were Five Kinematics Equations and were related to travel and velocity. He substituted and added the values into the main Schrodinger's, and then he was left with one unnamed value.

The value of the  _constant_.

 

**R(outcome) = v(multipler)+D(ream dimension)**

**I'll be waiting.  
At the same place.**

A voice beyond the ages, in a dream a million light years away, floated in his mind.

_I am your constant, Min._

 

_Yunho was the constant._

_\---_

 

_"How do we test if it works, Min?" asked Kyuhyun, fear edging his tone._

_"I have to input the values in here, and let the machine do the calculations and if everything is right, I will find the same backdoor that Yunho found," answered Min._

_"Where?"_

 

"Here," said Changmin. He walked slowly over to the large contraption at the back of the shed and paused before it, suddenly feeling the weight of the task that he had unknowingly and yet willingly taken up.

He pulled the cover off.

And before him,

stood a tesseract. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Pendulum

The both of them stare at the tesseract, unsure of what to do next.

"Do you know how to work this?" asks Mr Cho.

Changmin shakes his head.

He had come so far, yet with the structure in front of him, he wasn't sure what he had to do to make it work. Even more, how would he operate it?

He looks back down at the equations in his hand, all these pointed to something that would be the ignition to everything else. 

 

_R=V+d?_

 

He throws up his hand in frustration and on the way down, his arm catches the side of a box that was on the table and it goes flying.

It was the box that Mr Cho had brought in earlier. 

Papers, pens, photographs and something metallic catches Changmin's eye.

 

It was a ring.

He picks it up.

"That's Min's. Yunho gave it to him for their 10th anniversary. Kind of like a commitment ring. I never saw him without it but ... I guess he must have taken it off before he .. left." says Mr Cho behind him. 

Changmin turns the ring over in his hand, and spots an engraving.

∞2618. It is a lemniscate or rather, the mathematical symbol representing infinity.

 

_**Eternal, forever, neverending, continuous, unbroken.** _

While most people used it to symbolise love and relationships, in pedagogical sense, it actually represented **_a potential indefiniteness._**

 

**_\---_ **

**_"_ ** _Yunho?" called out Min as he walked through the garden towards the shed._

_But the shed stood silent, door closed._

_Min peeked in but there was just darkness and silence; Yunho wasn't here._

_Maybe he had gone out for a bit._

 

_Min shrugged and turned to go into the house by way of the back door when he spotted a light in the kitchen window. Usually he left the curtains open before he went to work, but now, the curtains were drawn so he couldn't see in._

_Was it Yunho?_

_"Yunho?" called out Min as he walked through the door._

_Yunho was standing by the kitchen table, a fond smile on his face._

_He raised his arms to draw Min into an embrace and took a deep breath of his hair, sniffing the smell of their shared shampoo._

**_Home._ **

_Pressing a kiss to MIn's forehead, he pulled away slightly and held on tighter to Min's hands._

_Min felt the cold of steel press against his palm._

_It was a ring._

_Engraved inside was a..._

_"Lemniscate," murmured Min._

_Yunho laughed._

_"I love that you called it by its mathematical name rather than just 'infinity symbol," his eyes twinkled as he spoke. "Promise me you'll stay you, always."_

_Min blushed, but he continued staring at the ring. Yunho coughed, and gently took it and pushed it onto his ring finger._

 

_"I can't promise you happiness, for I always seem to annoy you -" Min shook his head, smiling._

_"I can't promise I'd be tidier, for it's in my DNA to be an organised mess -" Min nodded, pretending to sigh._

_"I can't promise you time, for it's my own search too.. -" Min looked down, a moment of sadness tinging his face._

_Yunho put his finger under his chin and lifted his face up so he was gazing back at Yunho again._

_"But I promise you my heart, my love, my every living breath for as long as I live, for as long as you want me."_

_Min felt his eyes start to shine with the sheen of emotion and made a noise in his throat._

_"I promise you, me, all of me, for infinity. Changmin, will you have me?" Yunho whispered, hands tight around Min's and eyes sincere and full of love._

_Min nodded and threw his arms around Yunho's neck, crushing his lips in a searing kiss._

_"Yes, baby. For infinity."_

 

_\---_

A silence remained as Changmin continued to stare at the ring.

 

"His name was Changmin?" asks Changmin in wonderment.

Mr Cho nods, "yes but his close friends, Yunho and family all called him Min."

Once again, Changmin feels that strange feeling of familiarity singe through him. 

It was rather odd and peculiar, and yet, that piece of new information just made him want to get to to the bottom of this quicker.

He looked back at the ring.

 

_Infinity 2618._

 

This was the missing piece.

 

Particles that are charged in a magnetic field can theoretically - escape into infinity or a boundless possibility range without ever stopping. But this meant that certain conditions had to be met. Namely, the types of magnetic fields and the probability of a particle escaping the desired limits.

While these two outcomes will happen, one or the other, it made more sense now that Changmin had arrived at this point after solving the previous equations.

Everything led up to manifesting possibility and defining boundaries. Once you had a set of limits, you could determine a possible range.

The lemniscate was the clue Changmin had needed! It pinpointed the use of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle application. 

 

_A_ _fter all this while.._

 

He could almost imagine himself walking in Yunho's footsteps all those years ago.

Jotting down the theories, eliminating the outliers and qualifying the remainders.

By using Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Min might have figured out Yunho's position but  _not_  his momentum.

On the other hand, while Yunho had successfully applied the magnetic field to particles; and therefore, himself; he had whether by fate or bad luck, been one of the particles that 'escaped' his desired limits.

This meant that his position became uncertain, as explained by Heisenberg's principle. He could not figure out his direction or momentum because of uncertainty.

It was rather quantum mechanics but this  _was_ what infinity was really about - not so much position or trajectory, but more a realm of unrestrained potential. 

 _This_  was what infinity really meant. 

 _And that is why Min and Yunho keep missing each other_. 

 

"No one else could have put all these together," says Mr Cho, having listened, or tried to listen to Changmin's excited epiphany. "It required someone who already knew all these theoretical concepts well, and who else but a physics researcher."

**_With the same name too_ ;  _ **I w** as meant to solve this. _**

The realisation strikes Changmin hard like a lightning bolt and he holds onto the corner of the table to steady himself.

_The question is.. Why?_

 

 ---

"So how does this apply to the tesseract?" asks Mr Cho.

"Random elimination. " answers Changmin.

 

There is a computer set-up next to the tesseract and Changmin walks to it.

He turns back to Mr Cho.

"Ready to try and get your friends back, sir?" 

Mr Cho looks hesitant, but at the mention of his friends, his expression steels and he nods.

"Go over to the tesseract, stand in the middle. I'll enter these formulae in and join you in a bit."

 

"So where will we be going?"

Changmin looks back down at the ring which he had slipped onto his index finger for safekeeping.

_2618._

 

"Let's go to the future."

He inputs his final equation and sets his variable.

Then he takes a deep breath and hit enter.

Quickly, he rushes over to join Mr Cho in the middle of the tesseract.

 

At first nothing happens.

Then there's a slight whirling noise.

It gets louder.

_And the tesseract, starts to spin._

 


	8. Strata

**1905.**

A 26-year old clerk writes a paper explaining that even as the speed of light remained constant, both space and time would remain relative to the position of the observer. This would change the course of his life - and of the understanding of how the world spun - for then on. It was called, the "Theory of Relativity". Simply put, if a ball was rolled across the floor of a moving train, how fast would the ball be travelling? While the boy might see it as going slow, an observer may see it as going faster. Even more differently for a person in space, watching through a telescope. 

Just how fast would the ball  _really_ be going?

That clerk's name was Albert. As in, Albert Einstein. 

 

\---

 

So the tesseract seemed to be moving slowly (in Changmin's opinion); too fast (in Mr Cho's) and perhaps, to someone else, it might barely be moving at all. 

Changmin didn't think they had left the room. He could still see the wooden panelling in the ceiling and the edges of the sofa. Beside him, Mr Cho was clutching his arm, eyes squeezed shut. 

Think of it this way, how many times have you wished for time to speed up, only to find it trickling drop by single drop? Or how often have you hoped for it to slow down while in the thrills of pleasure; light dancing and blinking, only for it to end all too fast?

 

When Changmin had first crossed over the doorstep of the shop that sold him that redwood chest, he never thought he would end up here, It was just a few weeks ago; but now, it felt like he had been on this journey since the beginning.

And then the tesseract sped up for real. 

Well, they were definitely travelling  _somewhere_.

 

\---

 

The spinning must have stopped while both of them lost consciousness. Changmin supposes time travel would do that to you; the crossing of dimensions being all too rocky for the body's disposition. 

 

He opened his eyes to find himself on a plain. It looked like a grass plain. But it could have been an illusion. Who knew? Beside him was Mr Cho, also stirring awake. His arm was still firmly entwined with Changmin's - something that Changmin was secretly grateful for as he didn't think he wanted to be alone on this particular journey. 

 

"Where are we?' was the expected question.

"This is where the house is. Or rather, was," came the unexpected answer. 

"Is this 2618?" asked Mr Cho waringly. He was still looking around, hoping to find some sort of familiar object - or person. Who knows? Changmin had expected a thoroughly modernised and technologically-advanced city-like setting; not a grass-like plain. 

"If the calculations were entered correctly, it should be," answered Changmin. He stood up and dusted himself off. "We should start searching."

"For what?"

"Anything."

 

\---

_Yunho stared at the picture in his textbook as he pored over his notes._

_He erased a figure and then replaced it with another._

_Mentally calculating, he paused and then groaned as he realised the end result wasn't what he had been hoping for._

 

_Min stretched out beside him, stirred by the slight sound._

_He had always been a light sleeper but Yunho was usually careful to do his work in his shed and not bring it to bed._

_Most of the time, anyway._

_Yunho quickly pushed his books aside and slid down in the bed, grabbing hold of the curled up body next to his._

_"Sorry baby," he breathed into the other's nape._

 

_Silence._

 

_"Managed to figure it out yet?" came the husky reply as the brain finally found the coordinates to his vocal chords._

_Min felt a shake of head and a huff from in between his shoulder blades._

_"Wanna talk about it?"_

_Another shake of head._

_And then he felt himself flipped over so his sulky lover was now atop of him, grinning._

_"Make me feel better?"_

_"Yunho~ It's goodness knows what time.."  
"Hush, baby. As we all know, time is relative."_

 

_As lips made their way down his neck and encircled a nipple,licking._

_As a hand sneaked down to the front of his boxers, Min couldn't help but agree._

 

_The next day, while Yunho was humming in the bathroom, Min caught sight of the picture that had kept Yunho up until late at night._

 

_It was a wormhole._

 

\---

 

Wormholes are kind of like tunnels but in space. They connect from Point A to B. That is, if one were to assume A and B were fixed points. However, as it happens, due to inconvenient things like relativity and gravity, there were no such things as fixed points. A could be B and then C at another point of time and so forth. This meant that while traversing the bridge would take the traveller somewhere else, it didn't mean that the he or she could return to where he or she came from; or even back where to he or she originally had arrived at. It basically meant that once  _in_ a wormhole, anything and everything could change.

 

Changmin had realised this when he had arrived. As with bridges and things, such things usually formed shortcuts that provided a faster way of crossing rather than the long way around. 

"How did you realise this was where the house used to be?" asked Mr Cho.

Changmin was slowly becoming aware of a slight impatience in his chest. It wasn't directed at Mr Cho- but rather of something that seemed to be on the edge of the horizon. Something that was waiting for him to come.

"It was 2618. The coordinates for the wormhole that Yunho found,"  answered Changmin. "Of course, I didn't know they were coordinates, but they had to be significant. 4 numbers and infinity. Something constant. The house was.."

"Their constant." 

"Yes."

"A way of returning home when he could."

 

 _But he couldn't, could he?_ thought Changmin but he didn't voice it out. Not until he could find more answers to what kind of shortcut this particular wormhole provided; what kind of backdoor..

 

"Wait! Mr Cho! Didn't you say that Min said Yunho had discovered the backdoor to time travel?"

Mr Cho looked up from where he was bent over, examining a blade of grass-like grass.

"Yes?"

"Wormholes! Yunho must have discovered how to cross wormholes!"

 

\---

 

The problem with time and space and relativity is that these were all very delicate things. 

One movement wrong, one action mis-taken, could alter reality as it is known by a huge degree.

 

\---

 

Changmin felt the burning sensation in his chest grow. It was beckoning him, telling him to keep going.

There must be a reason why Yunho had come here and not returned.

There must also be an equally good reason to how he had managed to return that few times and then leave the letter. 

He did not know the guy but he felt like he sort of  _did_ anyway. 

He clearly loved Min, and their home was his anchor.

Without Min, without their home, he could not return.

The problem was in 2618, where he and Mr Cho were now standing, there was  _no_ home. And no Min either.

 

But 

 

Mr Cho looked up again, shading his eyes from the light.

"Hey, Changmin?"

"Hmm?"

"I think there's someone else here."

"Where?"

Mr Cho pointed at a point in the far distance.

There, standing against the horizon, was a figure.

 

It looked human. It looked like a man. But more than that, it appeared to have seen them and was now running.

Running in their direction with its arms waving.

 

\---


End file.
